As it turns out, it was for exactly the same reason — and the two women are expecting their babies, both girls, on Dec. 17.

Jessica Sibley, another Orlando Ballet dancer, had already learned she was pregnant, making a trio of ballerinas who will add another title to their repertoire: Mom.

"We were saying it must be contagious," jokes Yasukawa.

All are first-timers.

"I had a little trepidation — what is going to happen to me physically?" says Sibley, 35, married to Kevin Yates. "But it has been natural, normal, exciting." Sibley could have her baby — a son named Gray — any day now.

The three went their separate ways during the summer, when the ballet is not in season, but used the Internet to stay in touch.

"We were always telling each other news," says Yasukawa, 30. "It was cool we could share those stories."

"I actually really envied them," Yasukawa says. "My first three months were awful. I couldn't eat, and I had nausea all the time."

The three also kept dancing. Sibley teaches at Orlando Ballet School and performs at Cirque du Soleil's "La Nouba" show.

"He danced 28 shows of 'La Nouba' with me back in January," Sibley says of Gray. "I recently went to see it, and as soon as the music started, he started to move. It was cool."

Yasukawa is staging a production of "Sleeping Beauty" for Orlando Ballet. She and husband Lang Sae-heng are naming their daughter Anly.

"She listens to Tchaikovsky every day," Yasukawa says.

The women will miss performing with their Orlando Ballet colleagues in the season-opening "Vampire's Ball" program next month, but Bae and Yasukawa plan to be in the audience. "I might go on the stage and bow," jokes Bae, 28.

Artistic director Robert Hill says he'll miss their presence onstage, too. "All three of them are irreplaceable in their own way," he says. "Their energy is missing in the studio."

But the trade-off is the camaraderie they have developed offstage.

Says Sibley: "It was so great for me to share this experience with friends."